One of them would have him killed.

18

Unmitigated panic ripped through every part of Zarya as she stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know the woman there. It was a complete stranger gazing through her amber eyes.

One who absolutely terrified her. Even though she had a royal and noble bloodline and had been taught the ways of the aristocracy, Zarya Starska wasn’t an aristo. She could only vaguely recall those days.

No, she was a soldier. A Resistance fighter. One who was more at home on a battlefield than walking through the land mines of social barbs and verbal slaps. While she technically knew how to behave at a royal function, she hadn’t been drilled on those behaviors since her mother’s death. All she knew intimately now was raw survival.

A survival instinct that told her to run.

I don’t know if I can do this.

She blinked her eyelids that were heavy from the makeup Gera had applied. Her maroon dress was so tight, she could barely breathe. Strapless, it was trimmed in gold and dark blue—the royal Caronese colors.

According to Gera, Darling would be dressed in dark blue, and this dress had been made to complement his official state formal attire.

I’d run for the door, but in these shoes, I might break my leg.

For that matter, she wasn’t really sure if the delicate lace high heels that had been dyed to match her dress really qualified as shoes. But, she knew for a fact that her sister would kill to own a pair of them.

Her door opened. She expected it to be Darling or Maris.

Instead, it was Gera. She had a strange expression on her face. One that never boded well for Zarya’s sanity or sense of norm.

“Did we forget something?”

Gera smiled. “No, Mistress. You look like an absolute vision. Any man would be honored to escort you.” She brought whatever she’d been hiding behind her back around so that Zarya could see a burgundy leather box.

Zarya cocked a curious eyebrow as a wave of nervous trepidation went through her. “What’s that?”

“His lordship gave it to me for you to wear tonight.” Gera presented it to her much the way Darling had given his medal to Drus.

Zarya stared down at her new engagement ring. The center stone was dark blue with the side stones a deep, blood maroon that matched her dress. She’d only ever owned three pieces of jewelry in her entire life. Her mother’s ring that she’d given to Darling, and the two engagement rings Darling had given her.

And since two of them had been violently stolen…

“I don’t really wear jewelry.”

Gera refused to be daunted. “You’ll want this. Trust me.”

When she didn’t move to take the box, Gera opened the lid to show her the most magnificent necklace she’d ever seen in her life. It looked as if it’d been made to match her ring. Red and blue stones were laced together with tiny gold gems to form a collar that held one obscenely large, perfect red teardrop.